Over the last year, momentum has been building to revive the pandemic-era model of universal school food access. A new coalition is pushing the federal government to act.
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June 17, 2009
I have to hand it to Monsanto. A company representative on Twitter recently engaged me in a dialog about whether labeling products containing GMO food would do any harm, and, if so, to whom.
While the dialog felt like another cut-and-paste debate between me and previously published Monsanto paraphernalia, it offered just enough information about how Monsanto defends against mandatory GMO labeling. Clearly, anyone informed about consumer sentiments regarding GMO food knows that such labeling would devastate Monsanto and other GM seed companies’ bottom line. Which explains the vigorous, even suffocating effort by Monsanto to control the conversation.
The specific question I asked on Twitter was: Dear Monsanto, What would be the harm in labeling GMO foods, regardless of whether same as non-GMO food?
I didn’t send the tweet to a specific person, so anyone was welcome to jump in. Thankfully, @Mica_MonsantoCo (Twitter name of Mica Veihman, Monsanto Public Affairs) decided to take a crack at answering my question. Some of her responses included:
Do you see a pattern? Visit the Monsanto link Mica provided during our chat and you will see the theme continued:
Some might ask what the harm would be in requiring the labeling of products. U.S. labeling laws are based on health and safety. Requiring labeling for ingredients that don’t pose a health issue would undermine both our labeling laws and consumer confidence. Ensuring that such labeling is accurate would also put a huge burden on regulatory agencies.
Again and again, Monsanto stresses that mandatory labeling for foods containing GMOs would undermine the U.S. labeling system. At first, it seemed like Monsanto might have a point. After all, “Certified Organic” is not mandatory, nor is “Non-GMO,” since neither relates to health or safety, at least not from the industrial food system’s perspective.
Then I remembered the recently launched USDA Country of Origin Label (COOL) program, mandated by Congress through the 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills.
The 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills amended the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to require retailers to notify their customers of the country of origin of muscle cut and ground meats including beef, veal, lamb, pork, chicken, and goat meat; wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish; perishable agricultural commodities (fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables); peanut, pecans, and macadamia nuts; and ginseng.
Did Congress implement this law because of health and safety concerns? No. It did so to assist U.S. food producers in establishing competitive advantage based on the assumption that U.S. consumers, if given country of origin information, would buy U.S. products over imported ones. No mention of health. No mention of safety. Nor have I read anywhere how COOL has undermined our country’s labeling laws or consumer confidence.
Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, summed COOL up nicely: “I strongly support Country of Origin Labeling—it’s a critical step toward providing consumers with additional information about the origin of their food.“
Did you catch that? The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture highlighted consumer choice as the reason for a mandatory food labeling program. Given that 95 percent of U.S. consumers surveyed want GMO labeling, incidentally the same percentage that favor country of origin labeling, doesn’t it seem like leaders in Washington should step up for consumer choice again?
A less important, but still interesting question is how Monsanto can make supposedly definitive statements over and over again that are factually incorrect and misleading?
That’s the Monsanto way.
May 31, 2023
Over the last year, momentum has been building to revive the pandemic-era model of universal school food access. A new coalition is pushing the federal government to act.
May 17, 2023
How expensive is it to label foods? Is this really a significant cost?
I am willing to bet the tobacco industry had an attitude much like the GMO industry does today when cigarettes were not labeled as hazardous. Just consider that in 1944 cigarette production was at 300 billion cigarettes per year. It wasn’t until Big Tobacco had to start defending its product from a health perspective, which started 21 years later in 1965 when warning labels were mandated by the US Congress, that big money was spent convincing the public that cigarettes were cool, refreshing or whatever. It still amazes me that the FDA allowed such advertising of a known killer.
Which brings me to the importance of not discounting peoples’ concerns of GMO foods. The industry is still way too young to know whether there are serious risks, although a number of sources are already making such claims based on the available history and related research. What if they are right? What if people are slowly getting sick due to unknown side effects associated with specific GM ingredients? Is it worth letting something that over 90 percent of Americans want labeled to remain a mystery?
I for one can’t stand by waiting for the downside, which if left unchecked will create massive health and social issues for a large percentage of Americans.
Can you?